


Wednesday's child

by idolatry (bellmare)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, NaNoWriMo 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7875376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/idolatry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... is a child of woe.<br/>-- Val, Lavi, and putting each other back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wednesday's child

Val let herself into his apartment for two main reasons.

It made sense to her, at the time. It made sense because she needed something to do, lest she went crazy after being stuck at home all day after they put her on forced leave. She didn't know what was worse -- the mindless tedium of having so much time to herself, or that she could just never stop thinking. She hated it; hated the inactivity, the cycle of waking up, staring at the walls waiting for night to fall, and then going back to bed. 

The second reason was far more indistinct. It was instinct, almost, that told her something was wrong; that she needed to be somewhere, but she didn't know where. It was instinct that drove her out of the house after dinner -- insipid, she barely remembered what it was. Soggy takeout at the bottom of a container? Instant noodles without condiments? When did she even get that? The days blurred together, over the last week. 

It was instinct that led her to Lavi's place; instinct that wedged itself deep in her gut, in a cold, hard knot like a fist. When she tried to breathe in, it caught beneath her ribs and at the base of her throat. It made her heart beat double time, a nervous _thump thump_ echoing loudly in her ears.

Maybe she was just overreacting. Maybe she was still stuck in the past, still thinking of that night, of the bitter pills on her tongue and the way her hands shook. 

She didn't know what to expect when she opened Lavi's door to find the house dark. The living room window was open, a faint breeze stirring the curtains. Light sliced irregularly through the gap in the curtains, casting odd, jagged shadows against the walls. Her mouth was dry; she had to repeat herself a few times before she could get his name out -- and even then, she barely managed a whisper.

"Lavi?"

If she remembered correctly -- and this is where everything fell apart, because she couldn't even remember what she did today -- he'd left yesterday morning. The days were blurring together -- had been, for a little while, when all she did was sleep or clean. Cleaning helped to an extent; she'd read enough journals articles about it being cathartic, or some garbage like that. To an extent, it worked; it'd given her something to do, to whittle away all that time she spent doing nothing. Less helpfully, she hadn't been able to throw anything out. Every evening, she found herself sitting in the middle of her room surrounded by piles of ... well, she wasn't exactly sure what criteria she'd been following when she'd sorted everything. It comforted her, slightly -- at some point, she had almost been able to convince herself that she'd been doing something meaningful. It didn't last, of course; every evening, she moved her things back onto the shelves and into the cupboards, stacked them back where they shouldn't be, and sat back down with no clue what to do next.

She hesitated, still hovering uncertainly at the door. It didn't seem like Lavi was back. Why did he leave the windows open, then? Stupid. But it wasn't as if anyone would want to break in, anyway. Nobody else lived in the complex, apart from more of their own. Nobody had anything worth taking, anyway. Either way, she didn't want to go home -- not now, not when she'd finally gotten out of her own stifling room and house. Instead, she toed off her shoes and lined them up by Lavi's door, then made her way to his couch in the dark.

Somewhere along the way, she banged her leg against the dinner table. A dull ache flared in her shin; Val sank into the upholstery and prodded absently at her leg, then dug her thumbnail in. She winced, a little, at the slight twinge of pain. Good, goof. This was good. She'd gotten worried about forgetting what anything felt like.

His couch was comfortable. Then and again, everything about Lavi was. He was the old, the familiar; they always found their way back to each other, eventually. There weren't many left, who had that feel of familiarity. She felt herself starting to doze, tilting towards the mismatched cushions, when she heard it -- the quiet slosh of water being disturbed. There was a trickling sound, too; the steady _drip drip_ of a faucet that hadn't been completely shut off. Something else squeaked -- the tap? -- before the shower wheezed and sputtered to life.

Val sat upright, alert again. So he was home, then. Good. It'd been days since they'd spoken; she missed hearing someone else's voice. 

She waited on the couch for five minutes, then ten, then twenty, watching the hands of the wall clock move slowly past the numbers. She wasn't sure how long Lavi usually took in the shower, but surely it couldn't that long -- twenty minutes, surely, was excessive by most standards. Well, maybe she could afford to give him more time. She was tired, anyway. 

The next time she woke up, it was almost an hour since she'd heard the shower turning on. She was starting to get worried; had he slipped in the shower and cracked his head open on the tiles? What was he even doing? Did he drown? She was fairly certain it was near impossible to drown in a tub that small, but stranger things had happened. What sort of friend was she, if she didn't even think about checking up on him? What was he even doing? Composing mathematical logarithms or whatever on the steamed-up walls?

 _Drowning,_ her mind supplied unhelpfully. Val jumped to her feet, heart pounding.  _Stop,_ Alphard murmured, but Val was already feeling her way through the dark. She moved blindly, almost tripping over a stack of textbooks before she reached the bathroom door. The lights inside were on, the door a rectangle of darkness, its boundaries demarcated in yellow. It reminded her, irrationally, of caution tape marking off a crime scene.

She hovered uncertainly by the door, digging her nails into her arms to stop herself from shaking. At first, she reached for the doorknob, then decided to knock instead. It sounded explosive in the silence. Inside, the water splashed, sloshing noisily.

"... Lavi?"

He didn't respond immediately. When he did, his voice was strained and low, cracking halfway through the word. "Val?"

Val blinked, feeling the back of her neck heating up. Well, there were few things guys generally did in showers at night, right? Maybe she should leave. Or was she just jumping to conclusions? "Um. Well. You were in there for quite a while. Is ... is it a bad time?"

"No." The water stirred again. Something bumped against the wall.

Val turned away from the door, as if that would change matters. "Um ... is everything okay?"

"Peachy." It was faint through the noise of the shower, but she could just about hear him drawing in a short, shuddering breath.

She'd never have smelt it, were it not for Alphard. Alphard, who responds only to things like _instinct_ and _desire_ and  _hunger_. When Val breathes in, she can smell blood and fear and pain and confusion, a tangled snarl that catches at the back of her throat.

It's happening again, the night when the barrier between her and Alphard was the thinnest she'd ever allowed it to become; when Alphard had dug deep into her, and it felt like her skull would be cleaved into two. It's happening again and the white noise is buzzing in her ears as Alphard tears free of her control, up and away from her--

Val almost wrenched the door off the hinges, almost fell through the doorway and cracked her head on the sink. The tiles underfoot were slick and wet, water spreading across the floor. Her foot slipped when she tried to right herself, holding on to the edge of the door for support. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the brightness, to the sound, to the godawful smell.

There was blood everywhere -- in the towels clustered in the sink, in the smudged footprints on the floor, swirling and eddying around her feet as water dripped over the edge of the bathtub. There were syringes and bottles scattered over the bathroom counter -- suppressants, judging from the labels. Prescriptions meant to last until the end of the month, or longer.

Lavi froze when she turned to him, and dropped the syringe he was holding. It sank soundlessly into the water. He was sitting fully-clothed in the overflowing tub, almost neck-deep in red water. The shower faucet sputtered right over his head, flattening his hair to his eyes. His knees stuck out a good few inches over the surface of the water. He was shaking despite the heat contained in the small bathroom, despite the steam rising from the shower.

For a moment, Val wasn't sure what to say. She could feel her mouth opening and closing, could feel her throat working as she attempting to take stock of what she was seeing.

Lavi's gaze slid away from hers. "Everything's ... peachy keen," he mumbled, head drooping back towards the water. For a wild, horrible instant, Val thought he was going to slide deeper in and just go and drown himself in that godawful bloody water. Instead, he just hunched deeper into himself, slumping over his knees. The ends of his hair swirled in the water. He folded his arms, bracing his hands on his shoulders. "I'm fine."

When she didn't reply, he repeated himself, slightly louder. "I'm fine," he said, breath rippling the water. His shoulders rose slightly, then fell. "I think you should leave."

"Lavi." Val stared at him, uncertain. "What happened."

Well, she didn't really need to ask. It'd been happening all week, every day, anyway.

He shook his head, a bit harder this time. "I'm fine. You should ... I think you should go. Take care of yourself. I'm fine." Without lifting his head, he asked, "how are you feeling today?"

Her fingers curled into fists. "I was doing better right up until I saw you."

"Oh." His voice was a small, fragile thing, curling in upon itself. "I'm sorry."

Val looked at him, huddled in the tub, his dress shirt stained pink. Then, she reached forwards and shut off the faucet. It was noisy, for one. That, and he was wasting water and also probably sitting on the drain. Lavi already managed to flood his bathroom in an hour; she wouldn't put it past him to flood the entire complex while he was at it.

"You're an idiot," she informed him as she emptied her pockets. There weren't much in there -- just her phone and keys and some loose change. Those went on the least bloody part of the bathroom counter she could find. All that could be managed later.

Lavi didn't look up until she stepped over the lip of the tub, so she was more than knee-deep in cloudy water.

"What're you doing?"

She didn't bother to dignify him with a response -- mostly because she didn't know what the hell she was doing, either. The water was almost unpleasantly warm when she lowered herself into it; she could feel her clothes sticking to her, the moisture creeping up the thick woolen knit. Some of the water got displaced when she sat down, mirroring Lavi; her knees brushed against his when she tried to find a comfortable position to sit in.

There wasn't much place for the two of them, especially in a space barely enough for one person to soak in. More water splashed out from the tub. After some hesitation, Lavi shifted his legs to make room for her -- not that it made much of a difference, because she still wound up with her legs awkwardly tangled with his. "Sorry," he mumbled. Val rolled up the sleeves of her sweater, but didn't reply.

Lavi stared at her, so she stared right back. She'd always liked his eyes -- they were nice, brown and hazel and always so expressive. Tonight, though, was different -- they were an unnatural orange-gold, feverish and overbright. Just enough for her to know he wasn't entirely free of Denebola, just yet. Just enough for her to know that he wasn't entirely himself, not yet.

She didn't want to ask him anything -- not yet, at least -- so she tried to take stock of what she  _could_ see of him. He didn't appear to be seriously injured, at least -- though perhaps it could be Denebola's work. She has no idea how long it's been since he got back, let alone how long it's been since everything happened.

Val leaned over and reached out gingerly. When he didn't flinch away from her she edged forwards, encouraged. She rested her palm against the side of his face, trying to brush his wet hair back with her thumb. His skin was hot beneath her fingers -- always had been, since Denebola. When she tried to wipe away the blood, she was relieved to find no injuries underneath. He closed his eyes momentarily, leaning into her touch, and let out a breath neither of them realised he'd been holding.

"What happened?" she asks.

Lavi's eyes snapped open. He refused to meet her gaze for longer than a second, choosing instead to focus on a point on his knee. "Nothing," he said at last. "Nothing happened."

The word tumbled out of her faster than she could stop it, like a belch. "Liar."

The faucet dripped.

He looked up at her, but couldn't maintain eye contact for long. "Do you think it really was her?"

Val let her hand drop. It sank into the water with a quiet splash, barely disturbing the surface. "Of course it was. But it wasn't her any more."

"It looked just like her. It had her face. Her voice." Lavi put his face in his hands and breathed in, low and uneven. Val's eyes were drawn to a paper band around his wrist, the barcode and information bloated and distorted by moisture beaded over the waterproof coating. She knew almost all his details by heart, anyway, just like he knew hers. She felt, irrationally, the urge to rip the band off.

Instead, she leaned back slightly, cautiously feeling the bottom of the tub for the syringe. She hoped she hadn't sat on it. "The suppressants," she said. "How much did they give you? How much did you take?"

His shoulders shook. "Not enough," he said. "Not enough to forget entirely. Not as much as they gave you. Not enough for ... for Denebola to go quiet." He looked up at her; the wristband slid lower down his arm, almost getting submerged again. "How did you do it? How did you ... how did you--"

"Come back?"

 _Drip._ The faucet was still leaking, a little, The sound of the droplet hitting the water was magnified by the acoustics of the bathroom. Lavi bowed his head.

Val laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. "I didn't. They sent a retrieval team to get me. You don't remember?"

"... not really." Lavi huddled deeper into himself, digging his fingers into his sleeves. There was blood caught beneath his nails, grimy half-moons of red. "I shouldn't have come back."

Val felt like there was something cold and hard, squeezing her chest. "Shut up."

"I'm not saying it just because I feel like it," Lavi snapped, angry now. She could see it in his eyes, a shadow of Denebola stirring somewhere. She grasped the syringe tighter, the moulded plastic digging into her hand. Then, as suddenly as it came, the anger vanished and Lavi drooped again, sinking dangerously lower into the tub. "I'm not as strong as you are, Val."

"Shut up," she said again.

"You know what I made it back? When so many others didn't?"

Her vision seemed to go too bright, too sharp. With a great effort, she fought Alphard back down. "You idiot," she said, feeling something both cold and hot surging through her. It took a while to recognise it for what it was. For the first time in days, she was feeling  _angry_. "Last week, I thought you said you were prepared to die."

He looked up at her. "I wasn't, damn it, Val, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" His voiced seemed to bounce off the walls and ceiling, too big and loud for the confined space. "I was a coward, okay? Are you happy?"

_Drip._

"I ran away," Lavi said, after a while. "I fucking turned and ran because I didn't want to die. But you, well, you did one better. You went back. Even though you knew it'd be the end."

"Tell me what happened," she said, and beckoned for his hand. He stared at her, uncomprehending, before meekly complying. His entire arm shook when he held it out, water dripping from the cuffs. He flinched when she took him by the elbow and undid the buttons of his cuff, then pushed the sleeve up his arm. She unwrapped the restorative arrays, too; they deactivated the moment she pulled them off. His own arrays flared briefly when she ran her hand up his arm, and she flattened her palm against his skin. He was so warm. So warm, when all she'd felt lately was cold.

"I shouldn't have come back," he said softly, not really addressing her any more. "I should just have gone and died there. God. What kind of shitty leader am I, if I leave my unit to die, Val? I just turned around and ran the hell away while they died. I could hear them. I could hear everything. They should just go and feed me to Ajna and call it a day. That's all I'm good for, anyway."

"I heard the assignment's finally over," Val said as she lined the syringe up at the crook of his elbow; she hoped none of the bloody bathwater had gotten mixed in with the suppressants. "One week. One whole week, and they finally managed to take it down. Whatever it was. I heard they're calling it Nidhoggr now."

"The newest Heruka to emerge, and we all saw its glorious beginnings," Lavi said. "Lucky us." His fingers spasmed, momentarily, when Val pushed down the plunger. "Nidhoggr, huh? Well, that's some nice ... poetic justice. Dramatic irony. Whatever. I don't know. I was shit at literature."

Val held on to his elbow longer than she needed to. "How did they do it?" she asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer. "How many of us were sacrificed until they wore it down eventually?"

"Hell if I know." The tendons in his arm shifted and flexed beneath her fingers. He clenched his hand, the skin stretching tautly over his knuckles. "They decided to bring out the big guns. Vritra, of course. The biggest, baddest gun of them all."

"Oh."

_Drip._

"Tell me something."

"Mmhm?"

"... how do you cope?" Lavi asked. His voice was indistinct, softer than before. "How do you cope with what comes after? How do you live with yourself?"

Val didn't answer immediately. She unrolled his sleeve and smoothed it back down, but didn't let go of his hand. He was warm to the touch and that was nice. Nice, because she hadn't felt anything but cold for days.

"I don't think I'm the one you should be asking."

"Bullshit. You're the strongest person I know."

She laughed a little. It sounded too forced, too flat. "Don't be stupid."

Lavi cracked a small smile. He squeezed her hand. "I'm just telling the truth."

"Yeah? What a sorry sight we make. What do you call two shitty contractors sitting fully-dressed in a bathtub meant for one?"

"Um. I don't know. A hot mess?"

Val blinked. "I was going to say, the world's shittiest arthouse movie. But you aren't wrong. You could do better, you know."

"I could do a lot worse." He shook his head, wet hair flopping over his eyes. Looking at him, Val felt the urge to smooth it off his forehead. Or pet him. She wasn't quite sure. With his light, wavy hair hanging over his face like that, he sort of reminded her of a particularly woebegone sheepdog. A woebegone sheepdog that'd been out in the rain all day. It was almost cute, and she felt herself starting to smile.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing."

"Hmm." He let go of her hand and leaned back against the wall. The silence stretched out; it felt like it was beating against her head and filling her ears.

Val shivered; she felt cold, now that the water had cooled. She hadn't thought to wear a watch; she had no idea what time it was. The water surface stilled. Lavi's head lolled against the wall, baring the line of his throat. She had no idea if he'd fallen asleep.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like this," Lavi said, breaking the silence. His voice was rough at the edges, quiet and fraying. "Especially after ... you know." He waved vaguely. "Stuff."

"Shut up." She relented slightly when he seemed to wilt, hand dropping limply back over the edge of the tub. "What do you wanna do?"

"Don't." He stopped and cleared his throat. "Don't take me back. I don't want to go back."

That, she understood. She hadn't wanted to go back, last week. It's only fair she does the same for him. "Okay." Val tugged at her sodden sleeves, pulling them over her hands. "Then ... do you ... do you want me to stay over?"

She didn't bother to clarify; how he interpreted it was completely up to him. Lavi slowly dropped his head to look her in the eye for the first time that evening. "Please."

.

It took a while to get the worst of the blood off him, to coax him into leaving the tub. It was midnight by the time she gingerly heaved herself out and unplugged the drain, watching the bloody water swirl down the plughole.

Lavi hovered behind her, dripping uncomfortably onto the wet tiles. Val tried to wring out the sleeves of her sweater, watching as a satisfying amount of water splashed into the tub. "Say, do you have something I can borrow?" she asked. The sodden wool stuck to her skin, cold and rough and heavy. "Jumping into the tub with you didn't really factor into my plans for the evening. I thought I'd just check up on your place and go to sleep. Maybe on your couch."After some hesitation, she took off her clothes and piled them by the sink. She could figure that out in the morning.

"Oh. Okay. Sorry." Lavi cracked open the door and shuffled out into the corridor. "Why my couch?" he asked, when they reached his room.

"I can't explain." Val trailed slowly after him, this time avoiding knocking his errant textbook pile astray. "I wanted to be somewhere else for a while."

He rummaged for a while and eventually produced a shirt and some shorts. "That's the best I've got. Haven't done laundry for a while."

They changed in silence, surrounded by the darkness of his room. Val almost hit her knee on the edge of his bed while trying to get the pants on. "Well. I guess I'll take the couch. It's nice. Comfortable. Don't ever throw it out."

She could barely see when Lavi shook his head. "All right, then," she said, and perched awkwardly at the edge of his bed.

It was a tight fit there, because Lavi didn't exactly have people over often. Her feet brushed against his calves when he turned over to face the wall. He made a small noise at the back of his throat when she pressed her back against his, and tried to pull the duvet higher. Val shut her eyes and breathed in, suddenly aware of where she was -- all she'd wanted was to leave her own world behind, for just a short while -- and she got more than she bargained for. She could feel Denebola somewhere, like a shadow stretching across the room. Lavi was warm, so warm against her back.

Val listened to the sound of his breathing, to the shift of his back against hers. She watched as the luminous hands of the clock on his nightstand moved, sweeping across the dial. Somewhere, during the night, she could feel him starting to shake. Not knowing what to do, she huddled closer, and tried to think of other things.

She didn't sleep well, that night. Partly because whenever she closed her eyes, she could see something dark and sinuous, gliding along the edges of her vision. Partly because she could see the others, just before Nidhoggr swept down on them, as they lost control of their half-forms. Partly because when Lavi finally fell asleep, he started talking, and she didn't want to hear what he was saying. 

.

He's still asleep when she gets up, late in the morning. Val winced, stretching out her arms and legs, feeling the stiffness in her joints. He doesn't stir when she edged out of bed. Suppressants can do that to you, she thought. She didn't really remember what she was like, the day after.

Lavi slept through the afternoon, and most of the day. At a loss, Val threw herself into the daunting task of cleaning up the bathroom, and trying to get the blood out of his -- and her -- clothes. By four in the afternoon, she concluded it'd take a lot more than bleach and detergent to salvage her sweater and his shirt. Lavi stumbled out of his room sometime in the evening, one cheek creased by his sheets.

"How long was I out for?" he asked, sleep rounding out his words. He looked younger, more vulnerable than she remembered him looking for a long time. His hair stuck up at odd angles; he'd dragged the duvet out with him, throwing it over his head and shoulders like a weird, voluminous cloak. 

"Long enough," Val said. "If you'd like, I can stay tonight, too. I'll have to run out for a bit to see what we can do about dinner, though."

He looked carefully at her, face thrown half into shadow by his makeshift duvet hood. Val had the feeling he wasn't really seeing her at all. "I'd like that," he said finally. "I'd like that a lot."

**Author's Note:**

> DID SOMEONE ORDER MELODRAMATIC NANOWRIMO NONSENSE.  
> Oh wait that was me.


End file.
